First and final: Martech
Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 5:43 pm
After covering the utter behemoth that is Ocean Software, I thought this time, First and Final should look at a comparative minnow.
Martech was never a huge hitter in the full price charts, it didn't really compete on the terms of arcade or movie licenses but did carve out a small niche in getting sports stars to endorse a few titles. The majority of their output was completely original, so somewhat comparable to Hewson or Durell, although not quite as commendable.
Formed in the year of the ZX Spectrum's creation, 1982, by chemistry teacher David Martin (assisted by his brother-in-law, solicitor John Barry), Martech's legal name was Software Communications Ltd, although it was always known to the public as Martech, with an exception that it changed name to Screen 7 for its final year of operation.
Conflict
Naturally, the home-grown origins can't be ignored as I look at Martech's first release. David Martin, a board game enthusiast and inventor, had coded Conflict entirely in BASIC. Yet the ZX Spectrum program was only a part of the experience, as this was a physical board game that needed the computer's intervention to run. A board, map, counters, rule book and markers were part of the package. In fact, the game box itself resembled a traditional board game and being that kind of size meant it wasn't too attractive for retailers as it took up a lot of shelf space. This came in at a really hefty £11.95.
One consolation - there was a ZX81 16K version on the other side of the tape. (The Spectrum version goes out of memory if you try to load it on a 16K model.)
"A total war for two players involving both the machinery (armies, warships, missiles), and finance (stock market, oil, piracy) of conflict" is how the game is summed up on the box, making me feel like this is the creation of Peep Show's Mark Corrigan.
The box's pullquote from Computer & Video Games is very much of its time. "I enjoyed this strategy game as it made me think, rather than letting the computer do all the work, as so many other new computer games do."
That's quite jaw-dropping, as it's surely the job of the computer to provide a full gaming experience, but hey, this wasn't the first computer-moderated board game, and they were quite popular for a while until people came to their senses and stuck with board game concepts where everything could be played and provided by the computer. After all, the ZX Spectrum's best ever game is Chaos, which is a board game with no tangible assets.
"I soon realised that computer moderated board-games were expensive to produce and they weren’t really designed with manufacture in mind. One game, for instance, had 140 counters - and they all took up a disproportionate amount of shelf space in the shops. I came to the conclusion that boardgames involving computers weren’t viable unless you were a large company with lots of expertise in producing traditional boardgames" said David Martin when profiled in Crash.
In 1988, David Martin set up a software development company in the Republic of Ireland, with EMI's Mike Dixon. Emerald Software produced a number of titles for Martech, as well as US Gold and Grandslam.
The Martech name was dropped in 1989, with the company now known as Screen 7. Only three games for the ZX Spectrum came out under this new brand, although they had planned at least twice that. (Circus Circus is at least partly available as a playable demo on a Sinclair User covertape.) The most prolific of these three games was Jaws - an official movie license - although it didn't exactly impress the games buyers.
Screen 7 was even less prolific on the other 8-bit platforms, with two games for the C64, and simply Jaws released for the Amstrad CPC and MSX.
Let's take a look at the final ZX Spectrum release under the Screen 7 name...
Fallen Angel
At first glance, this game really strikes a chord with me. It's a horizontal scrolling beat 'em up, it's taking place on underground trains/stations (almost a requirement for this genre) and the graphics are pretty impressive. Could this be a contender to better the Renegade franchise? It's been developed by David Martin's Emerald Software...
Alas, when you actually play it, it's a crushing disappointment. You can't move up or down, you're confined to just left/right (a la Altered Beast or Kung Fu Master) which really limits the gameplay. The collision detection seems fairly random, yet it's fairly easy to clear a level of bad guys. There's not much of a challenge here. Your Sinclair awarded this 40%, although I would say that was far too generous. A year later, the magazine profiled it for a piece on full price abominations.
I wanted this to be good. I'm still not over the travesty that was Double Dragon on the ZX Spectrum. This truly is an utter turkey. It's not as awful as Renegade III, but really, it's not good enough for budget, let alone full price. It could have entertained a few as a magazine covertape curiousity, but frankly, it can be filed away with Players's Subway Vigilante as subway-based beat-em-up that comes across as punch drunk rather than any credible alternative to Renegade.
Simply put, it's a Farmfoods version of Vigilante.
Fallen Angel was the final game from Screen 7 for the Speccy. Other Screen 7 titles were produced by another external development team - Intelligent Design Ltd. Screen 7's next release was due to be Crossbow - The Legend Of William Tell. It never surfaced for the Speccy or C64, but did get an outing on the Amiga. From what I can see, Intelligent Design went down the tubes at this time and I guess that affected Martech/Screen 7.
It's a shame that Martech had to bow out like this. A year before, it had released the jaw-dropping Rex, a game that amazed me when I tried it as a playable demo. Rex had me amazed that a ZX Spectrum could look and sound that way. And yes, the gameplay was absolutely top notch. It was a very Hewson-like game indeed.
As for the developers, Emerald Software, they continued for a while, punting out games for the Atari ST, Amiga and IBM PC compatibles. Wikipedia says they ultimately ended up in bankruptcy in 1991, with the remaining staff going unpaid for its final few months.
Martech was never a huge hitter in the full price charts, it didn't really compete on the terms of arcade or movie licenses but did carve out a small niche in getting sports stars to endorse a few titles. The majority of their output was completely original, so somewhat comparable to Hewson or Durell, although not quite as commendable.
Formed in the year of the ZX Spectrum's creation, 1982, by chemistry teacher David Martin (assisted by his brother-in-law, solicitor John Barry), Martech's legal name was Software Communications Ltd, although it was always known to the public as Martech, with an exception that it changed name to Screen 7 for its final year of operation.
Conflict
Naturally, the home-grown origins can't be ignored as I look at Martech's first release. David Martin, a board game enthusiast and inventor, had coded Conflict entirely in BASIC. Yet the ZX Spectrum program was only a part of the experience, as this was a physical board game that needed the computer's intervention to run. A board, map, counters, rule book and markers were part of the package. In fact, the game box itself resembled a traditional board game and being that kind of size meant it wasn't too attractive for retailers as it took up a lot of shelf space. This came in at a really hefty £11.95.
One consolation - there was a ZX81 16K version on the other side of the tape. (The Spectrum version goes out of memory if you try to load it on a 16K model.)
"A total war for two players involving both the machinery (armies, warships, missiles), and finance (stock market, oil, piracy) of conflict" is how the game is summed up on the box, making me feel like this is the creation of Peep Show's Mark Corrigan.
The box's pullquote from Computer & Video Games is very much of its time. "I enjoyed this strategy game as it made me think, rather than letting the computer do all the work, as so many other new computer games do."
That's quite jaw-dropping, as it's surely the job of the computer to provide a full gaming experience, but hey, this wasn't the first computer-moderated board game, and they were quite popular for a while until people came to their senses and stuck with board game concepts where everything could be played and provided by the computer. After all, the ZX Spectrum's best ever game is Chaos, which is a board game with no tangible assets.
"I soon realised that computer moderated board-games were expensive to produce and they weren’t really designed with manufacture in mind. One game, for instance, had 140 counters - and they all took up a disproportionate amount of shelf space in the shops. I came to the conclusion that boardgames involving computers weren’t viable unless you were a large company with lots of expertise in producing traditional boardgames" said David Martin when profiled in Crash.
In 1988, David Martin set up a software development company in the Republic of Ireland, with EMI's Mike Dixon. Emerald Software produced a number of titles for Martech, as well as US Gold and Grandslam.
The Martech name was dropped in 1989, with the company now known as Screen 7. Only three games for the ZX Spectrum came out under this new brand, although they had planned at least twice that. (Circus Circus is at least partly available as a playable demo on a Sinclair User covertape.) The most prolific of these three games was Jaws - an official movie license - although it didn't exactly impress the games buyers.
Screen 7 was even less prolific on the other 8-bit platforms, with two games for the C64, and simply Jaws released for the Amstrad CPC and MSX.
Let's take a look at the final ZX Spectrum release under the Screen 7 name...
Fallen Angel
At first glance, this game really strikes a chord with me. It's a horizontal scrolling beat 'em up, it's taking place on underground trains/stations (almost a requirement for this genre) and the graphics are pretty impressive. Could this be a contender to better the Renegade franchise? It's been developed by David Martin's Emerald Software...
Alas, when you actually play it, it's a crushing disappointment. You can't move up or down, you're confined to just left/right (a la Altered Beast or Kung Fu Master) which really limits the gameplay. The collision detection seems fairly random, yet it's fairly easy to clear a level of bad guys. There's not much of a challenge here. Your Sinclair awarded this 40%, although I would say that was far too generous. A year later, the magazine profiled it for a piece on full price abominations.
I wanted this to be good. I'm still not over the travesty that was Double Dragon on the ZX Spectrum. This truly is an utter turkey. It's not as awful as Renegade III, but really, it's not good enough for budget, let alone full price. It could have entertained a few as a magazine covertape curiousity, but frankly, it can be filed away with Players's Subway Vigilante as subway-based beat-em-up that comes across as punch drunk rather than any credible alternative to Renegade.
Simply put, it's a Farmfoods version of Vigilante.
Fallen Angel was the final game from Screen 7 for the Speccy. Other Screen 7 titles were produced by another external development team - Intelligent Design Ltd. Screen 7's next release was due to be Crossbow - The Legend Of William Tell. It never surfaced for the Speccy or C64, but did get an outing on the Amiga. From what I can see, Intelligent Design went down the tubes at this time and I guess that affected Martech/Screen 7.
It's a shame that Martech had to bow out like this. A year before, it had released the jaw-dropping Rex, a game that amazed me when I tried it as a playable demo. Rex had me amazed that a ZX Spectrum could look and sound that way. And yes, the gameplay was absolutely top notch. It was a very Hewson-like game indeed.
As for the developers, Emerald Software, they continued for a while, punting out games for the Atari ST, Amiga and IBM PC compatibles. Wikipedia says they ultimately ended up in bankruptcy in 1991, with the remaining staff going unpaid for its final few months.
